Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to MantegnaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to Mantegna
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Miniato al Monte, and likewise his own
portrait.
Antonio finally died in Florence at the age of forty-six, leaving a
brother called Bernardo, an architect and sculptor, who made a marble
tomb in S. Croce for Messer Lionardo Bruni of Arezzo, who wrote the
History of Florence and was a very learned man as all the world knows.
This Bernardo was much esteemed for his knowledge of architecture by
Pope Nicholas V, who loved him dearly and made use of him in very many
works that he carried out in his pontificate, of which he would have
executed even more if death had not intervened to hinder the works that
he had in mind. He caused him, therefore, according to the account of
Giannozzo Manetti, to reconstruct the Piazza of Fabriano, in the year
when he spent some months there by reason of the plague; and whereas it
was narrow and badly designed, he enlarged it and brought it to a good
shape, surrounding it with a row of shops, which were useful, very
commodious, and very beautiful. After this he restored and founded anew
the Church of S. Francesco in the same district, which was going to
ruin. At Gualdo he rebuilt the Church of S. Benedetto; almost anew, it
may be said, for he added to it good and beautiful buildings. At Assisi
he made new and stout foundations and a new roof for the Church of S.
Francesco, which was ruined in certain parts and threatened to go to
ruin in certain others. At Civitavecchia he built many beautiful and
magnificent edifices. At Civita Castellana he rebuilt more than a third
part of the walls in a good form. At Narni he rebuilt the fortress,
enlarging it with good and beautiful walls. At Orvieto he made a great
fortress with a most beautiful palace--a work of great cost and no less
magnificence. At Spoleto, likewise, he enlarged and strengthened the
fortress, making within it dwellings so beautiful, so commodious, and so
well conceived, that nothing better could be seen. He restored the baths
of Viterbo at great expense and in a truly royal spirit, making certain
dwellings there that would have been worthy not merely of the invalids
who went to bathe there every day, but of the greatest of Princes. All
these works were executed by the said Pontiff without the city of Rome,
from the designs of Bernardo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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